I was very happy with my meal and my service here. I am a vegan and came because of the reviews extolling their vegan options. There are vegan apps, vegan entrees, vegan sushi rolls, etc. I wish I had come with a big group so that I could have tried more than the two sushi rolls I tried. Instead, I will just keep going back. I had a short wait for a table. My server was very friendly and professional. It is a small place and they are trying to turn the tables, but I had no problem with the speed of the service. I was told that the chef is vegan and that is why they have so many good vegan options. There is no other place in town that has this quality of sushi and Japanese food with these diverse vegan options. read more

went here once before with my mom and again today with a friend. They have a great lunch menu and also one of the few restaurants open on a Sunday afternoon in the Berkeley area. I got the Chirashi both times and for $13, you get 12 pieces of well worth cuts such as salmon, tuna, yellow tail, egg omelet, shrimp, etc AND unagi my fav. It also comes with miso soup as well. Good quality cuts and good size too. very fresh tasting. wait staff is great. It is a small place though but they can accomodate a decent sized group. read more

So sad Mama Lan's no longer occupies this space but delighted with the sushi prepared and the service. Not only was the lunchtime chirashi fresh and delicious, Kiku Sushi has tamari (gluten free, unlike soy sauce) AND Ramune, a Japanese soda into which you get to slam a marble before drinking (perhaps look up the directions before you get there if you don't know them already). It made me most nostalgic for Japan and sent me checking the price of flights. Can't get any better than that! read more

For valentines day my hubby asked me where I wanted to go for dinner. I had this craving for sushi, so we looked on yelp for some restaurants close by. This place wasn't too far away and had great reviews. Before heading out, we gave them a call to make reservations, but they told us they don't take reservations and that there is NO wait right now (6:15pm). Off we headed. We arrived to see a very small place with about 8 to 10 tables as well as a bar area. We noticed everyone going in to sign a clipboard with your name, party, and phone number. Guess it go busy in the 30 minutes that it took us to get there? There were at least 3 other couples ahead of us waiting outside for a table. This is where everything started to go wrong. As people eating are starting to leave, we see the waitress on her cell phone. I check my cell phone as well as where we are on the clipboard. 2 more to go. Again more people leave and I check my cell phone and the clipboard. Nothing. Now more people are coming after us and placing their names on the list. 45 minutes have lapsed and I know we should be next because everyone before us has been seated already. I see the waitress constantly on her cell phone and I again check mine. Then I start to see the people that have come AFTER us being seated!!!! STOP EVERYTHING!! I AM NEXT!! WHAT'S GOING ON?? I grab the clipboard and see lines crossing out names before and after my name? I am now trying to talk to the waitress who is still on her cell phone while running around seating people. I show her the clipboard and ask why I was NOT called. She tells me she tried to call me!!??? I WAS STANDING RIGHT OUTSIDE THE FRONT DOOR. A FEW FEET FROM HER NOSE FOR THE LAST 60 MINUTES!!! I double check my cell phone. NO calls. I double check the number written just in case I had forgotten the number I had owned for the past 10 years. No error, written down correctly for the millionth time. I asked her why she didn't just look for the next person OUTSIDE the door instead of trying to call? She told me she didn't have time to argue and that I would be next. As a society, have we gotten to the point were we NO longer communicate face to face? Everything is done via text, email, or phone calls. When we were finally seated, we had a different waitress. No apologies from the other waitress, no compensation. NOTHING! Food was OK. Very pricey. Portions small. Will NOT be back there again... read more

My husband, son and I decided to try a new Sushi restaurant since we were coming from the Oakland Airport and our favorite sushi place was closed on Sunday. My husband had the Chicken Teriyaki and they both had the Gyoza - HORRIBLE! The chicken looked like it was frozen (maybe from Costco). It had fake grill marks! Looks like the chicken was cut, placed in a plate and covered with some nasty teriyaki sauce then microwaved! JUST AWFUL! I could hear their microwave bell throughout our meal. The sushi was OK - nothing fantastic. Will go back to Shinsen Sushi in Hercules. Now, that's a great place! read more

my husband and i are big fans of Kiku. lovely little location in Gilman. The food is delicious. They also do take-out, which is good, since it can often get a little crowded. Overall wonderful! read more

This is the best sushi near us and we've been to Kiku dozens of times. The service however has gotten so bad we just can't give them our support anymore. This past week we tried going right at 5PM. Surely right at 5PM we'll get served in a reasonable amount of time. No, that did not happen. The take out orders start coming in, the overall terrible management kicks in and we're sitting there waiting forever. We ask for more green tea and that took 20 minutes. We didn't have any water so we were without anything to drink while eating and this is before the dinner rush. It's very poorly management and the lack of competition has let them get away with it. A new place is opening up where Lily's Chinese was and I can guarantee many of us locals will try this new place and if it's good and the service is reasonable, we'll switch. I rarely post negative reviews but this has gotten so ridiculous. Add in the Grubhub orders which come in and take them forever to make, it's just gotten worse and worse. 2 hour sushi dinner. read more

Rounding up 3.5 stars, but it's only at 3.5 because of the price. Out of all the sushi places I've had in the East Bay, this place definitely has THE freshest sashimi. (and I've been to quite a lot of sushi joints around Berkeley/Oakland). The sashimi and sushi combos are pretty pricey though, and they don't even give complimentary salad and soup for everyone (we ordered a salad and it was just very mediocre - for $5, when it's usually free anywhere else; they also made us order a 3rd miso soup because we only got 2 complimentary ones with what we ordered.... ) but the sashimi combo was def worth it. The fish is SO FRESH and they're pretty generous with the size of the cuts. We also ordered the sushi combo, which was good b/c their fish is just such high quality. Also had their rainbow roll which I did'n't get any of but looked great - rice to fish ratio is very good. Still, the total came out to around 30-40/person, and we were all still hungry afterwards. read more

We came here on Tuesday at about 7:00 PM. Our first time trying this restaurant. We waited for about 20 minutes for a table of two. The restaurant size is relatively small, so better to arrive early. I love sushi and sashimi. So we ordered rainbow roll, baked spicy scallop roll and chirashi special. The rolls were just okay. I recommended the chirashi. It serves in a bowl with about 8 pieces of fresh sashimi along with rice on the bottom. It was delicious. The bill came out as about $45. The food was fresh. read more

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I had two vegan sushi rolls. I loved both of them. I defiantly recommend eating here. The place small and fills up pretty fast.

Lovely staff. Comprehensive menu. Intimate setting. Competent sushi. A very sweet local business. Go there.

Food is excellent. Server doesn't smile much, but I attribute that to the fact that she's multitasking. The place fills up quickly, so be prepared to wait for a table. read more

This used to be my favorite sushi joint in Berkeley area but it has gone way downhill over the years. Before, there would be experienced sushi chefs, now it's a bunch of young random chefs. What's worse, the dining area constantly feel hot and stuffy and smell funky like some rotten fish. Service is also very slow. The order in which each dish comes is also wrong.. weird to get my entree before the appetizers. And super annoying that everyone gets their entrees at different times so everyone's just awkwardly taking turns watching each other eat their food... read more

Came here about a month ago with a group of 8 with no reservations. We were looking for a sushi place nearby and heard this was new. The restaurant seating was definitely tiny, wasn't sure if we could fit, since the restaurant was already full when we arrived. We did end up waiting for about 45 mins. before we sat down o eat. We ordered an assortment of sushi, and all of them seemed quite fresh. The standouts to me where the regular rolls, not the specialty/ combo rolls, though we only tried a couple of those. The ambience was ok, a no frills interior, just straight-up fresh sushi. If in this area again, would definitely try some more rolls, but with a group of 4 or less. read more

Edit: they've now jammed so many tables into this place that you're constantly brushed by, elbowed, and have other people almost sitting in your lap. The food is still good but it's claustrophobic as hell. Minus two stars! Previously reviewed: Oh dang, this place is really good. This is unfortunate for my waistline and pocketbook, because it's 3 blocks from my house, and was open PAST 8pm when I came by tonight... that's amazing for this general area. Northwest Berkeley is otherwise a dead zone past 6pm. I got a to-go order of a seaweed salad and a rainbow roll. The seaweed salad wasn't the typical neon-green strips of seaweed that's normally presented....it was actual seaweed that looked like...seaweed. Purple things, white things, all oceany and delightful. The rainbow roll is the best rainbow roll I've had in a long, long time. Really fresh fish, good balance of flavors. Just the right size pieces-- none of this hugely-oversized rolls that take 2 bites for each piece and you end up dropping it into your lap. Civilized. Rainbow roll and a seaweed salad came to $20 before tip. Not cheap, but neither are the ingredients! The fish seemed very high-quality. The place is cute- small, though, only maybe like 10 tables max and a counter that seats about 4? Hopefully they'll do better than the Thai place that used to be in this location. The staff was friendly and polite, and my to-go order was ready within 5 minutes. read more

Incredibly slow and noisy. Don't come here. Plus the waitresses are quite rude and don't really care if or when you are served. This restaurant won't be around much longer. read more

Fresh, delectable cuts of fish. We waited an hour with the kids in the cold, but after the meal everyone agreed it was worth the wait. I even got to pick out my own cup for my hot sake! I thought that was a cute idea. I also enjoyed watching the sushi chef artfully place tobiko from a tiny spoon onto a roll he made - i thought if the chef concentrates that hard on all details no matter how small, the food will be great. We ordered the sushi plate, crunch roll (which was the best version of crunch roll I ever had. Not one if those crunch rolls they just dump in the deep fryer but sofisticated and with spicy crab inside- yum!), rainbow roll and more....but we ate every last bite. We'll definitely be back. read more

Saba (mackeral) is easy to slice and serve fresh. My gf and I got a funky rubber-esque saba with a sashimi plate as well. Fish is semi fresh and whoever says it is fresh is crazy, we got aji which stunk, my gf said the uni was gross as well. We didnt just ordera ccouple things, we tried the whole specials menu including chu toro, which was alright... but 3 bottles of sake , a dozen diffrrent raw fish that smelled funky and a bill over 120.00 made me think these yelpers are caucasian and ordering stuff like udon, lol.. or a teriyaki beef , or their taste for freshness in fish is jacked up or something. Me and my gf felt sick and all we can do is go to a place that wont make us vomit and have repeated violent diarrhea for a few days . Dangit. :/ read more

First visit, great choices ordered. Unfortunately, the preparations were sadly off the mark in too many ways. The calamari was tough; gyoza undercooked; California roll ruined with mayo; Bbq sauce sickly sweet. This place cannot last like this. read more

Sushi was ok; service abysmal. Waited 45 minutes for food to arrive - and we ordered pretty basic sushi items. Waitress was unapologetic, and seemed to have an attitude, just didn't care. Pricey for what you get. With so many good sushi spots around, not worth it! read more

The service here is not good, like you can tell that the lady who served us had a long day. Never at once the lady had a smile the whole time. We were afraid to ask anything basically lol. We came here on a Sunday night and we were tipsy from a good Karaoke session. But this place totally suck out the fun of us. The ambiance is dark, the vibe is intimidating. Food is sub-par, and on the pricey side. not coming bk most def, yelp tricked me go on this one hahaha read more

We live around the corner from Kiku, and actually quite liked the Thai place it replaced. And average sushi places are a dime a dozen in these parts. Nothin' wrong with 'em. But... We finally walked in on a night we were too lazy to cook, and we weren't just pleasantly surprised, we were legitimately impressed. The sushi is creative but not too flashy, and most importantly, truly delicious. The presentation of the non-sushi dishes is thoughtful, verging on beautiful. Don't come here and not get the seaweed salad. I've never seen anything like it. It looks like a Pollock painting! There's also an nice-looking sake menu we haven't explored yet. The family that runs and owns it is charming and super excited to serve you. The space is small, cute, and can definitely get crowded. I hope they keep doign well, but I also think things will settle down after a while. For now, you gotta come early, late, or be ready to wait. Excellent food, excellent service, and the prices are right in the middle of the range. Definitely fair. Give this place a try if you're in North Berkeley. read more

It was odd not to be greeted with "irasshai" upon entering, but then I realized that the staff was not Japanese, but Korean. However, it was still odd not to be greeted at all - we stood there for quite some time before being told to put our name on the wait list. We didn't have long to wait, fortunately. The staff continued to be a bit - what, diffident? Just not all that welcoming...but we had a perfectly fine meal - truly delicious hamachi, nice and fresh. A superb chawan mushi. A very chewy squid, but then that's how squid can be...and a very generous serving of miso black cod. All in all, quite good, worth a second visit someday. read more

I really want to like Kiku, I do.... They have the Aji with deep fried bone. Not many places deep fried the bone you know.... Anyhow, I went in expecting fresh, tasty, not as common sushi and sashimi. I got a mediocre freshness of fish. Uni were not fresh, you can taste the sweet and sea if they were, but the sweet sea was nowhere to be found after i stuffed a uni in my mouth... good thing we got some nice sake to wash it down, and the buzz really helped. And the saba... saba is a common fish, and it's the bf's favorite. but DANG, what the heck happen to the texture and the color. I was buzz already so I just inhaled it. Aji was just ok, again, I don't think it's the freshest, the bone I love though. I guess the most memorables are the bads, I really don't even remember what we had. Bad thing is, I had a stomache the very next day. Food poison? i'm not sure, but I won't be surprised if I got it from Kiku.... read more

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First thing I've noticed was misspelled menu items. Unaju (eel in box) was misspelled as Unazu, and Tonkatsu (port cutlet) was misspelled as Donkatsu. This indicates that the restaurant is not managed by a Japanese. My friend asked for Tonkatsu, and the waiter asked which he wants, pork or chicken. Ton in Tonkatsu means pork, so the question doesn't make sense. I ordered Chirashi sushi. It was descent but the fish wasn't sliced thin. Each piece was more like a block. If it were sliced in two thinner pieces, I could have enjoyed the same piece twice. Tonkatsu that my friend ordered was rather dry. There was no juice. Thickness was uneven. Nevertheless, the waitress was friendly and the meals were descent. I might return if I am near them at lunch time. read more

I'm always looking for a good sushi house. After searching for places in Berkeley, Oakland area, I came across this place with 4 stars. I wasn't sure if I had been there but my friend and I decided to try them out for lunch. After getting there, we were both sure that we had been there with not a memorable experience. We read good reviews on their Calif. roll with real crab so we ordered a roll. It may have been fresh real crab but the crab had no taste, only mayonnaise laden mush. My friend, who likes California rolls at other places, didn't even finish them. Some of their fish were fresh but not all of them tasted good (like clean ocean breeze). The miso soup had very salty taste with very little umami. The tuna sashimi had grayish coloring around some pink in the middle, a sign of fish getting old or had gotten old. All the other fish were so-so. We can only rate this not so great an experience two and a half stars, sorry. We will also now remember to not go back. read more

This place is gross... sashimi sucks and tempura and RICE! Stale rice, fishy sashimi and soggy tempura. Service sucks. Waited for my check for really long with a dirty table and it wasn't even packed. I had high hopes because of the Yelp reviews but it was NOT the experience I had read more

This is the freshest sushi I have every eaten. .....I love their food and it's affordable. Wonderful atmosphere, I have truly found my spot. ....I will definitely come again! read more

Best sushi spot in the Bay thus far. Whether it be cooked or raw, everything is amazing. Theres always a bit of a wait but definitely worth it. read more

Popped in to try... We'd been driving past for about a year... tried both the sashimi (super fresh/high quality) & dragon roll and it was so yummo! The sauces are perfectly seasoned and compliment the food very well... the items are light and delish. We sat at the counter and the chefs were delightful and sweet. We didn't bother them too much with conversation, and they checked in with us while the waitress was taking care of other biz... I like it when a team easily picks up where another left off. We will definitely be back :) read more

Best sushi ever! Incredibly fresh and delicious. I am officially hooked! Will go there at least twice a month and always make sure I bring out of town guests who inevitably love it as well. Superb sushi. read more

It is difficult to make the choice.... but I have to do it If I write a review and share that this place is great, that the sushi is some of the best I had in years, because the owner (he told me this) is using just the best ingredients in order to establish his new restaurant, is bad... the place will be discovered and who knows what will happen On the other hand not writing a good review would be totally wrong, since he does truly deserves a good comment since the food is amazing read more

Believe the hype. This place is incredible. Best sushi I've had in the East Bay.

Excellent! Some of the freshest fish I've ever had. We ordered saki and they put the glass in a little wooden box. Apparently its tradition to overflow the glass. If the overflow from the glass spills out of the box its good luck! That piece of fun trivia pared excellent sushi made it an awesome experience. Can't wait to go back! read more

Not sure why this place only has 3.5 stars, I thought it was outstanding. Maybe Berkeley has somewhat more fastidious clients than the peninsula which is where we lived before. The fish was fresh, it was very reasonably priced and I thought it was darn tasty. The service could've been a bit better but it was a very busy Friday night we went so willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. read more

Best sushi in the Bay Area hands down. I know, I'm was just as surprised as you will be when you go. Think "Jiro Dreams of Sushi" in Berkeley. Ridiculously fresh fish, adorable chef/owner with an attention to traditional details and prep, and cozy space (aka I wish they had more tables and less of a wait on the weekends). read more

Not bad for the price. I prob give it a 3.8 compared to Sushi Sam In San Mateo or other high end sushi joints in SF. Most sashimi is from the pacific except for fish on the board. They are from japan. Rolls are decent. Enjoyed the Kaisen roll and the crunch roll. Small place so not suitable for big parties. read more

Kiku Sushi - Japanese Near Me - Berkeley, California

My wife and I love good sushi. We've been searching for a good sushi place in the Bay Area for the past decade and were disappointed by most places we've tried. Then we tried Kiku last week. Eureka! This place serves top quality sushi. The chef is passionate about the quality of his fish and it definitely shows. This is not a place that serves a bunch of fancy rolls with ridiculous amounts of sauce poured on top. Their priority is traditional nigiri sushi and sashimi. It's not cheap but not outrageously expensive, either. You will get great sushi for a fair price. Don't forget to try the uni; it's the best uni we've ever tasted. read more

Not really sure why this restaurant averages 4 stars. The food is decent, but way overpriced. For example, a rainbow roll is $13 and you get 7 pieces that aren't very big at all. The fish tastes good, but isn't as fresh as it could be. Left here feeling a little ripped off. Service is fine. Not sure what other reviewers are talking about, the waitresses smile and regularly ask how things are going. read more

It's been a long summer, boy. I needed to let loose in a big way, and to feel sexy again. I needed a spontaneous date night. My fiancé and I made the very last minute decision to go here. It was a 5 minute drive. We waited for about 25 minutes, from 7:30-7:55 on a Friday night. It smelled Amazing inside. I immediately knew we were in for a treat. Long story short, we had a treat! We went crazy. We ordered maguro, hamachi and unagi sashimi, beef teriyaki (me) and a couple fancy rolls (him). The portions were huge. We almost completely filled up on the sashimi (plus salads, miso soup and rice). We took most of our entrees to go. TO GO. The quality of the sashimi was unbelievable. To quote the once great Mike Meyers, "Oy, it's like butter!" IT WAS LIKE BUTTER. Just go here, Ignore the negative reviews, order the sashimi. Service was amazing. God, can't say enough, just go! Go NOW! Seriously. read more